Category: Psalm 130

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,and in His word I do hope.” (Psalm 130:5)

I know, beloved — it hurts, waiting with the weight of the world on your shoulders when confusion rattles your soul and hope seems so far away. It is the hardest thing, to keep holding on to hope moment after moment, day after day. You have kept fighting for hope, for weeks and months and years now and all the fighting has left you scarred, your wounded heart so weary and vulnerable. There is that silent question your soul sighs — is there purpose to this waiting, to this season that is so unbearably difficult?

This waiting, it takes courage and strength and some days, you are barely able to do it, barely able to keep hoping for yet another day. Us flawed and messy people, we keep breaking over having to wait and some days, our hearts are plain fractured and echoing loud with hurt. But us with the broken hearts, there is still purpose for us and for our hearts losing hope. The broken hearts will love harder than most do, reach out to those of us undeserving of love and this one, here — it is the will of God, that we love another through the pain and the depths of darkness.

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Yet, you know this, beloved. This waiting, as hard as it is? It serves a purpose greater than what we can behold right now. It is working for something good, something great. Throughout the history of this world, we have always been waiting people: waiting for redemption, waiting for our Messiah, waiting for His Second Coming. It is so hard, to keep holding on to hope and trust that there is something great coming — we know this, that the waiting itself is beneficial for us, trying our faith and exercising our patience. As we keep offering our hurting hearts back to the Lord, we are trained in our submission to the Lord and our hearts are molded, made new. And when, finally, the answer or the blessing comes — it means so much more now.

So keep holding on to hope, beloved. It can be the hardest thing, the one that breaks our hearts the most. Trust that the answer will come, though it might not seem even possible right now. Hold on to hope through the sorrow of the night, trusting that God will come through at the dawn of the day. Let His Word be the source of your strength, patiently hoping and waiting still one more day.

God might make us wait now, but He will come through.

“If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for him.” (C. H. Spurgeon)

“But there is forgiveness with You,That You may be feared.” (Psalm 130:4)

I sat there with her, watched her as tears ran down her cheeks and I felt it, the hurt of the sharp words that cut through the gentle heart, the weight of having to bear all this one more day yet again so unbearable — and I knew, the heavy set of darkness surrounding a kind soul would take time, would need time to let the light find in through the cracked corners and broken pieces. I knew, oh I knew — the brokenness of a soul wounded while so undeserving, the hurt now woven into the strings of a beautiful soul and I witnessed once more, this grace that never ceases to amaze me.

I can see the hurt flowing in waves, the echo of a wounded heart loud in her eyes when she lifts up her chin and looks at me, and I knew — this, this is grace. Because never did she mention the hurt tha,t tore through the fragile walls of her heart. Never did she even try to defend herself, accepting humbly the anger of another, knowing fully well she did not deserve the least of it. Beneath the storm of the wounding words that break a heart right in half, there was something greater rising — this forgiveness, so undeserved, yet freely given.

This here, I have no doubt — is a picture of heaven, the forgiveness flowing so easy and so our God bends down to meet us where we are, His beloved Son wounded for our transgressions and love covers all our sins. I cannot help but notice, this truth loud in every beat of my heart: we are so undeserving, even of the least of the forgiveness of our great God. We see it, we see it in our own hearts: the deep darkness and the despair, the sinful wickedness and plain ugly selfishness. We feel it — in the words we speak without thinking, in the acts of kindness we refuse to extend, in the stubbornness of our unrelenting soul. This here, our hearts? I feel the weight of it, too, my friend.

But this is not the end, beloved.

There is that one word, that lifts the weight of the darkness and speaks light into the core of our soul: but. Blessed but, that leads us into the forgiveness of our merciful God. For all our failures and shortcomings, for all our weaknesses and great faults — there is forgiveness with Him, His mighty hands ready to extend and welcome you in the moment you come confessing. And I know, oh I know, it hurts — to plain come and admit, that you could not do it, that you tried on your own and did not have it in you. But there is forgiveness with Him, to cover all with His love and this, the greatness of this radical grace can never quite be understood.

I wondered there and then about what to tell her, whether words would help soothe the ache of a wounded heart or maybe help her carry her pain a little further. But there were no words, only this notion — that we must be broken to pieces to appreciate the whole. This time, this new chance of trying again, for no failure needs to be final.

We will never be perfect, never complete before we are with Jesus. But that is okay.

These days, I am confessing my lack of trust in this moment and then in the next, as I try to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, only to find out later on that the Lord had them in His hands all along. These days, the Holy Spirit convicts me of my lack of faith, as I struggle to keep on believing that there will be an answer to all the questions my heart holds, that every step of the way will bring about growth in me and I am becoming more like Jesus.

I look at myself and all I see, is that I am a broken person with a messy heart, living in a broken and fallen world.

This, my friends — it hurts on most days. I wish that I would be like Paul, full of wise words that convict, encourage and teach. I wish that I would be like Peter, ready to jump off the boat and into whatever the Lord is calling me to do without having to think about it even for a second. I wish I would be like David, with a heart after God’s own heart and willing to fully surrender everything to God. But I am not. I am a weary sinner, very aware of my sinful heart that lacks trust, patience, and so much more.

Oswald Chambers writes, “The one marvelous secret of a holy life lies not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfections of Jesus manifest through themselves in my mortal flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you.”

So there is always hope for us in these words, beloved — “Christ in you.”

All of us with messy and hurting hearts — we whisper His name: Emmanuel, God with us. He is with us always, even to the end of the age.

All of us who have lost hope — we take comfort in that in God, we have a hope and His faithful love remains. He knows where we are going, and He is creating something new in us.

All of us who fell short once again, who tried but got nowhere — we rest in the knowledge that His grace is all we need today. His mercies never cease.

These steps of sanctification — we feel every one of them as we walk on this journey of faith, carrying our sinful hearts and facing the hurt of being bare, vulnerable before our great God. Yet the words of Timothy Keller echo through the plains of my heart: “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” On our own, beloved, we can never stand. But we are accepted in the Beloved, and this is the greatest hope for us to hold on.

I woke up that night, crying, and I knew — I finally connected what I should have noticed days earlier, my strength spread out thin through the week, my heart broken and bruised from the continuous bad dreams and hard nights. It was there, in the brokenness of this messy heart of mine and the confusion woven through the strings of my soul. I waited until the morning, to tell him what I was already so certain of and the words spilled out with more tears, the honest truth carrying notes of shame.

The enemy is warring for my soul.

And I know, we started this by ourselves when we started painting my fears across pages and in words, when my soul was laid bare and all was covered with tears. It was never easy, exposing those dusted corners of a heart and the looming darkness of my fears; and we started something greater, something of purpose and this — it is never the way of the enemy when we find purpose in our pain. So the shame tries to tell us otherwise, to turn us away from the hope that is there, waiting for you to take the step of faith.

Is this not the cry of our heart, in the midst of the desperate search for answers, in the deep darkness and the hopeless nights. It is all we ask, the one thing we plead — Lord, please, would You hear my voice? Will You answer me, Lord? Or are we left alone to find a way out, to trace back all those wrong turns we took, hoping that this time we will make it right? Are there ever answers to these questions rising out of the deep, is there hope for those who are ready to stop searching?

“Still, there is a voice in silent supplication, a voice in our weeping, a voice in that sorrow which cannot find a tongue: that voice the Lord will hear if its cry is meant for his ear.” (Charles Spurgeon)

I know, beloved — I know. This hopeless place, feeling like you are stuck in circumstances that will never change and the hurt you carry is crushing you. This impossible circumstance that keeps stealing your breath, the closed doors feel like walls closing in. I know, dear one — my heart is right there with you, breaking, and the pain echoes in the heartbeats. There are no words, nothing to describe these waves of sorrow storming up in your soul. Nothing else will do; nothing else can satisfy the longing of a soul. Nothing else will be enough — only God.

But I am learning this one thing, that it is better for our prayers to be heard than for them to be answered. We might be left waiting for an answer — for days and months and years now. Bu we find comfort in knowing that the Lord has heard our voice. The Creator of this world, the Maker of ours hearts — He has heard those tired sighs of your soul. The plead in those tears, the silent cries of our hearts, they have all risen up to His ears. The answer will come when it is the right time.

These days, the trees turn golden and burnt orange, the autumn colors painted across the nature and I cannot stop watching, captivated by the beauty of the colors. Yet, slowly, the leaves are falling and the trees are left bare, ready for winter — and I cannot help but think, how there is so much beauty the moments before death, those moments when time seems to stop as winter takes over and the trees get buried, forgotten in the midst of snow. Here, now — it is easy to behold the beauty. But in the midst of the frozen land, life buried deep beneath the frosty ground? Waiting is hard.

Most of our life, if not all days of our life — we are waiting for something. Waiting to get a job. Waiting to find that special someone. Waiting for our family member to come to the Lord. Waiting to find a new home, one that you can afford. Waiting to find a church. Waiting for a baby. Waiting for that friend, that loved one to return to the Lord. Sometimes, oftentimes — the waiting breaks your heart, over and over again every day. Sometimes, it seems as if all hope is lost.

Friend, for the next eight weeks, we will walk through Psalm 130, verse by verse. This Psalm is a song of redemption, rising out from the depths into the redeeming hands of God as we wait for Him to come through.

“Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.” (Psalm 130:1)

So often we think that struggling means we are weak. That struggling means we were not strong enough, that we were not good enough or able enough. That struggling means it is time for us to give up. My friend, hear this, please — this is not true.

I know, beloved. This life, all these broken people in this broken world — it gets so very difficult on most days, the hurt unbearable weight on our shoulders and the confusion stealing our strength. But it is when we no longer have the strength to stand that we finally are faced with those bare prayers that rise out of our hearts and it is in that moment, right there — that we finally get to the depths of our heart, to the plain land where there is nothing but the fields of our soul and our raw faith.

Charles Spurgeon says, “Prayer is never more real and acceptable than when it rises out of the worst places. Deep places beget deep devotion.”

This here, beloved — let these words change the way you see this trial, this impossible situation, these difficult circumstances and hard days. Deep devotion rises up from deep places, when we surrender our circumstances and ourselves to the hands of our Creator and trust that even in the deep, He hears our voice and answers our prayers. It is in the struggle, in the trial and the testing, that our faith becomes more precious. And I know, dear one — most days it feels like our faith is so weak; it is barely the size of a grain of sand, let alone a mustard seed. But we know that God remains faithful even when we are faithless. He will carry us through. We need not be ashamed, for our God can be trusted and He is good.

“He that cries out of the depths shall soon sing in the heights.” (Charles H. Spurgeon)

Are you discouraged today, friend? Are you waiting for something? Can I pray for you?

I'm Ronja (pronounced RON-yah). Follower of Jesus, working on a Master's Degree in Speech & Language Therapy. I live in southern Finland. I'm fueled by coffee & grace. I am here to encourage and to share the light of grace with the beloved children of God.